Apparently, at Least One British Newspaper Hasn't Figured Out How to Spot a Hipster

Sliders are trendy hipster food in Great Britain, where apparently the year is 2003.

Our resident Englishman stumbled across an article in a popular UK newspaper that aimed some snark at what the paper called current food trends. Gavin, who at his present rate of Americanization will soon own an AR-15 and a pickup, took exception to the article's outlook.

An Open Letter to The Guardian

Dear The Guardian,

Congratulations on your recent article about food trends, or as you decide to term it, "hipster food," despite the lack of further explanation as to why this should be termed hipster beyond the assumed notion that said food is now "cool." I presume you define hipsters as liking cool things, but essentially we mock them so because they take ridiculous things to be cool -- things that are unwieldy, unsuitable and impractical. A slider is none of these things. It is wieldy, suitable and practical.

You calling things "hipster" is like Chris Brown calling someone a woman-beater -- you'd obviously know, but it doesn't reflect well on you if you use the term to start criticizing things. Indeed, you display evidence that you are more hipster than the hipster food, by reviewing it in ironic terms. This displays elements of that most popular hipster past-time, the rejection of things that have become mainstream cool because they are now widely appreciated.

In fact, all this article really shows is that the UK is about 10 years behind the U.S. in food "trends". All the items you mention are so very mainstream in the U.S. that they were cool, then uncool, then cool again, and now they're just sort of there. I love our little island, but beyond Indian and Chinese food, we're not exactly an exciting, boundary-pushing nation are we? For a nation that is renowned for tasteless fish with gigantic undercooked potatoes to call burgers and ribs "filthy, no-collar food" is really quite breathtaking. I'm not even going to try to tackle everything that's wrong with that statement, suffice to say that this kind of mindboggling snarky left-wing elitist pseudo-intellectual class snobbery is everything that's wrong with your newspaper (besides the spelling and the wonky grammatical errors).

I will finish up by pointing out that you spent an entire paragraph trying to derive humor from the idea that mac'n'cheese is a less suitable name than macaroni cheese, saying that the difference is that the U.S. version is a "big, brash, JR Ewing take" on the UK version. It's not. It's the same. Have you eaten any of these foods, or just seen pictures of them? Here's what's important -- flavo(u)r. And I, an Englishman, would gladly take any of this "filthy, no-collar food" over our typical pub menu of a reheated frozen pizza, a chicken breast with some cheese, and a curry from a packet.

It's the UK; what do you expect? The outpost(s) of rural new England are the same thing......they think basic BBQ, and what they call "nacher's" is cool. Heck man, my brethren in NE have been eating boiled cabbage, Brussels Sprouts and "oven steaks" aka boiled brisket, for 300 years-and it's gross.

I called my brother on X-mas, and they were eating some manner of cod; COD. ReaLLY, how many ways can you eat cod before you start getting brown teeth, scurvy and walk with a demented, trifling peg leg>?

Maybe now's not a good time to say that a recent trip across the Atlantic would indicate that restaurant food in the UK has improved immensely since the late 90's and early 00's. In fact, on this trip at least, our best meals were in London, not Paris. There's nothing 2003 about fresh, well seasoned fish, game, and vegetables.